More intriguing, perhaps, than any impact of Barack Obama’s racial identity on the November election is the broader association between race and voting for the Democratic and Republican parties.
Gary Segura, professor of political science and chair of Chicana/o studies at Stanford’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, emphasized before the election that the attention paid to Obama as African-American was less of an issue than the way racially connected voting has been part of national party politics in general. In the aftermath of the November 4 results, based on exit-poll data, Segura notes that a significant shift may have begun: “The imperviousness of the white vote to Democratic appeal may have weakened a bit.” The Democrats have not won the white vote since 1964.
Although Obama trailed John McCain sharply among white voters—but won the election with overwhelming support from all other racial groups—Segura points to signs of the Democrats extending their reach among the electorate in ways that might indicate a crack in past coalitions.
One element Segura cites: Obama’s share of the white vote, using the exit-poll information, was higher than that of any Democratic nominee since 1964 except Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton in his landslide 1996 re-election. The data showed McCain with 55 percent of the non-Hispanic white vote, Obama with 43 percent. In 2004, George W. Bush received 58 percent of the non-Hispanic white vote, John Kerry 41 percent.
Segura’s insights on racially divided voting and party identity were included at a preelection panel sponsored by the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS). The event spotlighted the range of expertise among Stanford scholars in the study of democratic institutions, as well as innovative research efforts by IRiSS, which helped design AP-Yahoo voter polling conducted for a year leading up to the election.
Karen Cook, ’68, MA ’70, PhD ’73, IRiSS director, appointed Segura and fellow political scientist Simon Jackman co-directors of the Stanford Center on American Democracy. The center will draw on faculty from law, economics, business and social sciences to foster a deeper understanding of participatory governance.
Segura has devoted substantial research to Latino participation in politics and government. He quickly began taking a close look at another theme of the election: a shift of unexpected proportions in favor of the Democrats by Latinos. Obama received 67 percent of the Latino vote, McCain 31 percent. That breakdown was much tighter in 2004: Kerry had 55 percent, Bush 44 percent.
“It’s preliminary, but this could be an indication of a narrowing coalition for the GOP,” observes Segura. “The GOP gets the lion’s share of its votes from whites, and [non-Hispanic] whites are shrinking as a share of the electorate. If [the GOP’s] primary appeal to minority voters is to Latinos—and that was rebuffed and reversed in this election—then the Republican coalition as currently constituted would be significantly less than 50 percent of the electorate.”
Among the November consequences were dramatic margins in a number of battleground states. The immediately available data showed Obama garnering 77 percent of the Latino vote in Indiana while eking out a 50-to-49 percent victory. Without the Latino vote, Segura notes, McCain becomes a 50.7-to-49.3 percent winner. In North Carolina, Obama (based in this case on closing poll averages) took 67 percent of the Latino vote while winning by fewer than 14,000 votes (out of more than 4.23 million cast for him or McCain). Without Latinos, Segura observes, McCain would have won, 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent.
“Obama’s success,” says Segura, “was broad-based, mobilizing larger numbers of African-Americans, significantly expanding his share of the Latino vote, doing better than past Democratic nominees among whites, and turning out a veritable army of young voters, students and newcomers to the political system. He has the advantage of following a wildly unpopular predecessor, but it remains to be seen if he can meet such high expectations. The key for him and his party is delivering on enough commitments to cement this victory into a long-term national majority coalition.”
